


Five Ways to Fall in Love

by redribbonmagpie



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Sharing beds, fluff so sweet it makes candy seem sour, sick/caretaker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redribbonmagpie/pseuds/redribbonmagpie
Summary: The four times Costis and Kamet kissed eachother and the one time they kissed back.(Or, on their journey to Roa there's a Gay Awakening)
Relationships: Kamet & Costis Ormentiedes, Kamet/Costis Ormentiedes
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	1. Sickbed - Kamet

It was on my long journey to Roa that I fell ill. 

It appeared to be no more than an unusually long bout of sea-sickness and a small fever, but Costis’s open, honest face betrayed his worry.

“Kamet,” he said, using my name with an unusual gentleness that had developed after I'd flinched one time after he shouted. “Are you sure you're alright?”

  
I was bundled up in wool blankets below deck, knees clutched to my chest, wanting to curse the gods - likely the Attolian ones - for the slush that churned in my stomach. I tried to feign relaxed as I answered the Attolian who crouched worriedly by my bunk. 

  
“I'm fine.” I felt bile beginning to rise in my throat, and I quickly scooted the wooden bucket closer to me as I clamped my mouth shut. Costis's round blue eyes hardened a little bit, a sign that his infuriating stubbornness was taking root. I wondered if he had learned it from his King, as the expression was hauntingly familiar. 

  
“Kamet.” Some of the steel of his eyes went into his voice, the shortened breath of the e’s in his Mede conveying his determination. 

  
I have to admit, I was unused to being cared for at this personal of a level. My Master had often had doctors or physicians treat me after a bad beating, but that seemed more like a courtesy the further I grew away from that life. But Costis… Costis was a near constant figure. His tightly corded muscles, used to lifting a weight much heavier than my slender frame, had picked me up with unsurprising ease but surprising delicacy and grace when I’d first fainted on deck. I'd apologized profusely upon waking - changed into my night shift, which made a flush come to my cheeks even as I tried not to think about it - but he'd just laughed a little.

  
“Kamet?"

“Yes?”

  
“You can be a bit of a shortsighted fool sometimes.”

  
I sputtered a little, but the Attolian had only laughed a little more and gone up deck to fetch me some water before I could truly process his caring tone.

Loving, almost. 

  
When I had first met the Attolian, I had assumed him to be like a bird: chatty, flighty, weak. Then I’d reevaluated, thinking he was a bear: dumb, large, strong.

It had taken me a while, up until that moment, truly, to realize he was a wolf. Loving, but stern, fast and strong, not a coward nor a fool. 

  
“Really, Costis, I'm-”

  
My sentence was choked off by rising bile. I hurriedly leaned for the bucket, but the Attolian was faster, shoving it in front of my face just as the watery remains of my last attempted meal splattered out of my mouth. 

  
I retched until there was nothing left to come out. Weakly, I leaned back, moving to wipe the vomit that splattered around my mouth and face, but Costis had set down the bucket and grabbed my hand, holding it in place. My eyes, blurry at best and even more obscured by reflexive tears, didn't see what he was doing until I felt a gentle wet cloth on my face, carefully wiping away the regurgitated spit soaked chunks of bread.

I felt shame rise in a wave of heat to my cheeks: being sick in front of someone is humiliating in the best of circumstances, and I was pretty sure I'd spewed some onto him. Onto his defined bare arms, which were exposed because he, in a fit of ridiculousness, hadn't put on a shirt before he put on a loose cloth vest. Or onto his face- oh gods, what if it was in his hair?

  
Eventually the cloth pulled away, and the floorboards creaked as Costis stood. I felt his hands- cool, smelling faintly of leather and wood and sea-spray, and gods, why was I noticing this?- on my face, bushing a few loose coils of hair behind my ears. 

  
“Relax. Rest.” 

  
And then he leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. 

  
It was soft, quick, a second of contact so intimate I felt as if I might as well throw myself over board before my blood boiled because of my embarrassment, then he was gone. I heard him grab the bucket, then his boots on the ladder, and then silence. 

  
I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding and sat there in dumb-struck silence, then lay down. 

  
I didn't sleep, my mind as restless as the sea, wondering what- if anything- the Attolian had meant. 


	2. Bad(?) Luck - Costis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Costis loses a bet but wins a kiss.

I’d lost a bet.   
To be fair, I had thought it was a bet I could win easily. My older brother taught me to play cards as well as any gambler around.

But I guess he'd forgotten to teach me the most important thing: when to quit. 

  
So that was how the crew of the _Donlia_ stole my favourite pair of boots, my blankets, and how I'd been stuck washing the deck for the last hour.

  
I almost didn't notice when Kamet emerged from below deck, still looking sickly but better than before. He'd wrapped a ragged blanket around his shoulders like a makeshift cape but was still shivering, his nose crumpled in a delightful way that happens when he encounters something distasteful. He shuffled over to me. 

  
“Are those my socks?” I asked amused, momentarily pausing my work with a sponge and straightening to look at my companion. Indeed, the thick wool socks, far too big for Kamet’s slender frame, that stuck out of the ridiculous short boots he'd insisted on buying were mine. 

  
He seemed a bit embarrassed, and shuffled a little, his hair blowing faintly in the wind.   
“Mine have a hole.”

  
“And you don't know how to darn?”

  
He sniffed, a bit pretentiously.

  
“I may have been a slave, but I was a powerful one. I managed the ledgers, accounting. Not…”

  
He trailed off, then huffed and raised his chin a little, refusing to make eye-contact. I read between the lines. 

  
“I'll teach you how, sometime,” I said, bending down again and wiping at the deck. The wood had acquired years of dirt and salt, and despite all the effort and soap in the peninsula it would remain dirty until it rot. Kamet’s awkward silence felt flustered.

  
“...thank you,” he said eventually. His words were quiet, but set a spark flaring in my chest.

  
“No problem.” 

  
“Come back down,” he said, an almost plaintive edge to his tone. “It's empty without you, and it's cold up here.”

  
It was one of the first times I'd heard Kamet openly admit to wanting me around. The spark in my chest ignited with hope, and I attempted to stifle it.

  
“I have to wash the deck for another hour still.”

  
“What'd you do?” He asked curiously. 

  
“Lost a bet,” I grunted, trying to put my weight into scrubbing out a particularly large salt stain. I huffed as a sharp wind blew hair into my face. Kamet shivered, and shifted so he could better see my face. I could just see his stupid short boots at the edge of my vision. 

  
“Alright, Costis,” he said, quiet. I felt a glimpse of radiant warmth, like I did everytime Kamet said my name. It had taken months for him to use it, now everytime he did, I felt… Right. Like he was the only one who could say my name and make it mine. 

  
He crouched down and planted a kiss on my cheek.

  
“For good luck,” he said, straightening, almost impassive. His dark eyes shone, but I could only see a glimpse of them as he walked out of my line of sight. 

  
“W-Wait, Kamet!” I called out in my native Attolian, cheeks burning, surprised and flustered enough that I didn't think to speak in Mede. 

  
“Hm?” He said, turning back, as calm and collected as ever. His blanket cloak and dark curly hair danced in the wind, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the stories he told me on our long journey. He looked God-like in my eyes. 

  
“U-Uh,” I said, in broken Mede, fumbling for words. “Um, why- why did you-?”

  
“For luck,” he said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and like it was the most normal thing in the world to say, descended back below deck.

  
I sat, at a loss for words, for who knows how long. Intimacy in Attolia was an affair for closed rooms and wedding nights, cheap inns and private chambers. Not for- for an escaped slave and a guard who maybe fell a bit in love with him on the deck of a ship. Maybe it was different in Mede. Maybe touches, kisses, glances, were really only just that. Maybe the kiss was for good luck.

Or maybe not.

  
Kamet’s trickery, I thought, would one day drive me to insanity. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kamet: *tells those stories to costis*  
> me, every time: WOW LOOK AT THE GAY AND THE PARALLELS


	3. Compromises and Calm - Kamet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meden thoughts on intimacy are broken and the boys are domestic.

I woke up one foggy morning to find the large, slumbering form of Costis curled up around me.

  
He held me loosely, not quite possessive but protective, his left arm pinned under my back, his right draped loosely over my chest. His breathing was deep and low, the faint rumbling of a snore vibrated from his body through mine. His sandy hair flopped across his forehead, brows finally unfurrowed in sleep. 

  
Immediately, I sat up and yelled in surprise, tugging the blankets to cover my chest, even though the thin shift I slept in covered everything I wanted to hide. The Atollian mumbled a little and rolled over, grabbing my abandoned pillow and shifting to the end of the bed, turning his back to me as I held my breath. 

  
Once the initial fear of an unknown presence had subsided, and the deep set embarrassment of seeing Costis in my bed had lessened, I noticed an important fact I’d failed to process before. For the first time I’d ever seen, Costis slept shirtless.

  
In Mede, sleeping without a garment, other than on the night of marriage, was highly scandalous. I'd never seen so much bare skin in my life, even when we’d quickly changed on our trip.

I flushed, glancing away, trying not to notice the curves of his body, the faint layers of tan and fading freckles, the few scars from accidents. He slept peacefully, undisturbed by my faint squawk and sudden recoilation, seemingly unaware of how many cultural traditions he was breaking just by being there. Slowly, I let myself sink back down onto the mattress, still avoiding looking at Costis, and furiously trying to combat the emotions that rose out of the depths of my mind.

  
I'd never seen the Attolian so peaceful, so relaxed. Even at the end of our journey, there had always been distance, a hesitation that came from being in a new land, the fear of being captured or failing. And never before had he crept so close, though there'd been long nights when I'd wished for his warm body to drive away the cold. 

  
After waging a silent but furious war with myself, I hesitantly touched Costis’s shoulder and shook it gently.   
“Wake up,” I hissed.

  
Immediately, he was awake, blue eyes snapping open, jolting upright. His hands- large, calloused hands- were automatically balled into fists.

  
“Where?” he demanded, in his harsh guttural Attolian, already scanning the room for an invisible enemy. I lightly put my hand on his shoulder, and he tensed, whirling around, ready to attack. When he saw me, he relaxed, looking a bit sheepish. 

  
“Sorry,” he said, resuming his normal thick accented Mede. He leaned closer, his breath warm on my skin, hands shifted from fists to cups, one of which settled on my hip and the other the side of my shoulder. Before I could sputter something about dignity or modesty, he pecked my cheek, a few days worth of scruff brushing against my skin, then slipped out of the bed easily. He crossed the few feet over to his bunk, which had been stripped of most of its blankets. The bet, I remembered, a bit numbly. His other belongings remained, though, in a knapsack at its side. 

  
“You need to shave,” I said automatically, almost accusatory. He laughed, a genuine, hearty laugh, but acknowledged me with a nod. He tugged a clean shirt out of his bag and pulled it over his head, much to my relief. 

  
“...By any chance, did you have a reason for climbing into my bed?” I asked, raising an eyebrow, sticking my feet out from under the cover of the blankets. The cold air made me shiver, and he crossed back over to hand me a pair of socks. 

  
I stared at them. They'd been the ones I'd wore a hole in. It was one of my first pairs, when I'd still been unused to them, but where the fabric had once thinned into oblivion, thick wool thread had carefully been woven, patching it over.   
Quietly, I tugged them on, the silent kind gesture almost making tears come to my eyes. 

  
“You were having a nightmare,” the bigger man said, half-heartedly running a hand through his sandy hair. 

  
I winced. I didn't like anyone knowing I still had nightmares. They seemed so childish, stupid that I'd waking up in a cold sweat, terrified out of my mind. I didn't remember the one I’d apparently had, but I wasn't surprised it happened.

Distractedly, I handed him an ivory comb I'd bought.

  
“Sorry you had to see that.”

  
“There's nothing shameful about nightmares, Kamet.”

  
I swallowed, then abruptly frowned as I noticed Costis’s usage of the comb.

  
“... have you ever really brushed your hair? Get over here.” 

  
Obediently, he walked over and sat down, like when girls braid each others hair. I took the comb back, and, mildly embarrassed, began to brush his hair out. It was the unruly type, not quite curly or wavy but certainly not straight, with a dozen cowlicks at any given moment, but it was soft as I began to brush it out.

  
I thought back to the kiss, mere moments ago. And for once, I didn't feel shame rise up in me. It had been a movement so casual, so natural, that even I was hard pressed to find fault. My hands moved automatically, smoothing down some of the messy parts. He quieted, patient as I worked.

  
Then my hands stilled, and Costis stood up.

  
“Thanks.” 

  
“No problem.”

  
And he left, leaving me with a thousand previously unasked questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: (ships characters)  
> me: hAir..., bruSh.ie..,,,,,,brush brush brush

**Author's Note:**

> Yo this is soooo old so I'll probably come back and edit it so it sounds better. If you liked it uhhh kudos/comments fuel me? Comment even if it starts just screaming about how cute the boys are


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